Having opened herself up to the visions the crawlerz shared Yue was finding it impossible now to shut it down. She didn’t feel like she was more sensitive than the others anymore. Now she felt like she’d just lacked whatever survival traits the others had buried in them that made them block and ignore the visions as much as they were able. This close to the large group of monsters she was overwhelmed by their hate. She fell to her knees whimpering. It was all too much.
Harley noticed Yue hit the floor and saw Lisa trying to get his attention. He strode right through the press of defenders he was part of to bend down and gently pluck Yue up off the floor. He turned back around still holding Yue across his shoulder to continue firing at the infected every opportunity he got. His large shotgun held in the hand not securing Yue to his shoulder. Even shooting it one handed he made the weapon look like a kid’s toy.
Lisa didn’t want to wait to die. She went ahead and opened the next gate and ran through it yelling for the rest of them to hurry up. She was doing her best to remember where the hell the cafeteria was. She’d even settle for a bathroom at this point. Sure they might be stuck there until they starved to death in a building infested with the infected but at least they could choose their own manner of death. Plus the toilets should have water in them so they wouldn’t die thirsty.
On the fence closest to the invading infected one soldier who didn’t make it through the gate died. Another one got in a shoving match with the gate and a tiny tot of a crawler. As small as it was it slowed down the soldier enough so that one of the adult sized infected could post itself up against the gate. The soldier stared into its insane eyes while continuing to shove on the gate as hard as he could.
Drew walked over and blew a hole in the thing’s head. The soldier pushed hard on the gate with a relieved smile. The gate clicked shut. The soldier suddenly cussing loudly and dancing backwards from the gate cradling his hand. Drew saw that the man had blood dripping down his arm from where that infected toddler had reached up and bit his hand. The man stepped up to Drew and pressed his bandolier into Drew’s hands.
“The rest of my ammunition. You’re going to need it man. Leave me here until I turn. Then shoot me in the head.” The man said it all quickly to Drew. He then turned around and ended the life of the worst example of the terrible two’s ever with two quick shots. Drew decided not to take any chances and shot the soldier in the back of his head immediately. That whole waiting for someone to turn thing never really worked out.
Drew followed the others through the next fence helping shut the gate behind them. One more fence later they were at the cafeteria doors. They were doors like you’d find at the entrance to a gym. They could be closed and locked and should be a lot more solid than the hallway fences were proving to be. A collective sigh of relief when the doors were opened, and the cafeteria looked empty. Tom and his remaining men quickly moved in. The small fire team walked the perimeter with flashlights to make sure. The metal over the windows was already starting to buckle from the renewed assault on the space by the crawlerz outside.
They slammed and locked down all the doors. Breathing hard they gathered about twenty feet back from the entrance to regroup. The crashing of the crawlerz outside against the metal bolted over the numerous windows was so loud it was difficult to think. The noise made conversation almost impossible. Timing it to be said during a brief lull Major Tom threw out the question that’d been bothering him. The gym was only a little bit further away on the other side of the hall. Why had they gone to the cafeteria instead? Why not to the gym which didn’t have any windows down low?
Jeff’s answer didn’t seem to thrill the major. At least not if you based it on the expression that flitted across Tom’s face. He turned around cussing and stormed off to check on the integrity of the windows. He was hoping he could reinforce them somehow. Jeff’s plan was just going to get them all killed if they couldn’t keep the damned demons out until morning.
Chapter 10: Desperate Times
“Why the cafeteria instead of the gym?” Drew asked Jeff with his normal lack of subtlety. In Drew’s case it wasn’t super aggressive. Unlike Tom he was operating off the assumption that Jeff knew what he was doing. Tom thought the pressure had gotten to Jeff and he’d cracked. Making the wrong call under fire like that happens. Tom was probably kicking himself because he hadn’t challenged it. Not that there’d been time to setup a judge and tables and have a formal debate out in the hallway. If anyone should’ve taken control and insisted that they go to the gym instead it was definitely Tom though.
“The loading dock’s here.” Jeff said. The answer was beyond vague. When he didn’t appear to be interested in adding anything else LeBron felt the need to goad him along.
“The loading dock being here is important because…” LeBron asked.
“If it’s because we have vehicles parked out back you should probably consider the minor fact that there’s like a thousand crawlerz outside right now too. No way we make it alive to those trucks. No way this place holds until morning. Too many windows. The only thing holding the crawlerz back before must’ve been that they didn’t know they could break in. Now that they do, they’re not stopping for anything.” Tom said. He’d completed his anger fueled jaunt around the cafeteria. Hearing they were in here because of the close proximity to the loading dock made him want to do another lap or two.
“We’ll need a distraction. We’ll need to go out fast and hard. We probably won’t all make it.” Jeff confirmed the serious suckiness of his plan.
The sound of wood cracking coming from one of the windows under attack made them all care less if the plan sucked or not. A terrible plan well executed could still have a good result. Worried about just how much the plan was going to suck LeBron asked Jeff to lay it out for them. Jeff led them back into the windowless kitchen. They spent a minute shutting all the doors between the dining area and the serving area. This included a large garage door type section that covered the areas the students would’ve formed lines in to get their rectangular slabs of overcooked dough with industrial strength pizza sauce smeared on top.
With those doors all closed and latched the noise level fell to an acceptable number of decibels. The windowless kitchen giving them all some hope that maybe they could spend the night in here. The place was designed to keep students from breaking in to do whatever it was the cafeteria management thought students might do if allowed to run amuck in the kitchen unsupervised. The heavy door they’d pulled down and latched seemed solid enough to all of them.
“They’ll work their fingers under it and rip it out of the wall. Nothings going to keep them out of here.” Yue said. On top of sensing what the crawlerz would do to get at them she also knew what her own people were thinking. That just required a quick scan of the faces of the people in the room. No phone call to the psychic hot line needed on that one.
“There’s two up armored Humvees and some modified troop carriers all within about twenty yards of that door over there.” Tom said pointing in the general direction the vehicles were parked in. “We’ll just have to shoot our way through a marching band worth of the infected to get to them. Once we get to them good luck driving out of here with them pressing down on you. If you don’t think that solid metal door over there’s going to keep them out, then do you really think a windshield will do it?” His voice was sounding a little less calm. This was a guy they’d all thought of as pretty unflappable. A senior officer who’d spent plenty of time in the field. If he was freaking out that was a really bad sign.
“The windshields are armored right?” Drew asked. He was remembering the delta force operators who’d come at them outside the Fontana dam. In that case a blanket had done what bullets couldn’t accomplish. A prime example of improvising to overcome.
“Sure. They’ll stop some rounds and even provide some protection from an IED blast on a good day. They’re bad ass machines but those things out there don’t care. They’ll crawl all over it until they find a wea
k spot. You won’t be able to see to drive. You’ll be stuck sitting in the parking lot wondering if the Humvee will protect you until sunup or not. Assuming you make it into the Humvee in the first place.” Tom answered.
“Got it. We wait until the crawlerz get in the cafeteria. Once they start tearing into this door, we make the run to the Humvee. Like the major’s saying every single second counts. The longer we sit in here the less time the Humvee has to survive a thousand crawler curb stomp.” LeBron said.
“When those things get in here how the hell do you think you’re gonna get from that door into the Humvees?” One of the soldiers asked. He must be taking his cue from his boss. He sounded frazzled. LeBron looked over at Drew and nodded. Drew looked lost for a second then a big grin appeared on his face. He pulled his pack off and rummaged around in it for a second. Once he’d found what he was looking for he held up two of them.
“Grenades?” The soldier asked. He tried to say it sarcastically, but Drew’s grin was highly contagious. Plus what soldier doesn’t enjoy destroying his or her enemy with a well tossed grenade?
“They’ve helped us out of tough spots plenty of times.” LeBron said joining in on the grinning.
“We’re all going to die.” Lisa said looking back and forth between the soldiers and her boyfriend and his brother. She was especially disappointed in LeBron. He was supposed to be the smart one. Encouraging Drew to use grenades was a definite indication that LeBron’s IQ had dipped a bunch of points recently.
They talked through who was going to do what when the crawlerz made it in. They inspected all of the doors and tried to figure out ways to make them even more difficult to break down. The garage doors being the only ones they were really worried would go down fast. The problem being the door slid down to the floor where it was secured with a latch you could open from the inside but not the outside. It wasn’t overly difficult to slide a hand under the door on the far edges of it. Once the crawlerz started assaulting the door they’d be pulling up on it with all of their strength. That little latch wasn’t going to last very long.
Even if they didn’t figure out to pull up on it just smashing into the door was eventually going to break that latch. Encouraged that it was taking the crawlerz a long time to make it into the dining area proper Drew decided to booby trap the cafeteria. His idea was to take out the first wave of crawlerz when they came in. That might keep them from figuring out to put their fingers under the door. If nothing else the more that they killed the better in his mind.
LeBron immediately supported the idea for a completely different reason. He wanted to take the time to explain his idea but worried if they waited much longer it’d be a moot point. Drew, Harley, Tom and another one of the soldiers lined up on the door to the dining area. When they were ready Jeff opened the door for them and they calmly filed out. The men then took the time to rig three grenades to blow once the tables inside the dining room started shifting around.
Once they were done Drew had them help him stack some of the tables up against the metal roller doors as well. Whatever they could think of to slow the monsters from forcing them to make that dangerous run for the Humvees. Ideally, they’d just sit in the cafeteria until morning came then saunter out to the vehicles for a joy ride. They’d just wrapped up the placement of the tables where they wanted them when Drew saw the hunk of metal covering one of the windows fall off the wall. The loud noise alerted the other men, and they made a run for the door to the serving area.
Jeff slammed and locked the door as soon as they made it inside. Seconds later the door they came through emitted a loud groan as the crawler on the other side threw all its weight against it. Then came the sounds of more and more of the infected smashing themselves into the outside walls and doors. They were trying to get in at the frustratingly close team of people they could sense on the other side of the cafeteria wall.
A loud boom signaled at least one of the booby traps had been detonated. The explosion had hopefully fragged a bunch of the bastards. LeBron still hadn’t told anyone what he was hoping happened yet. He’d been thinking about the video Charlie had shown him earlier. The video showing what happened to the warehouse the day after a bunch of the crawlerz got blown apart in it. Maybe they could use the crawlerz weird communication method against them. If enough of the infected got to see how the others were dying in a fiery explosion inside the cafeteria without actually seeing any uninfected humans they might stay away.
Another explosion made the rolling metal door ripple from the concussive force being unleashed in the enclosed space. A few frags struck the metal sounding like the angriest hailstorm ever. LeBron was thinking that was two out of the three when they all heard the third go off. The third one that must have been tossed around in the room by the blast from the second explosion. That was the easiest way to explain why it went off so much closer to them than the other two.
Unlike the first two this one rocked the metal roller door with frags and concussion. When the noise died down, they all opened their eyes to see what’d just happened. One of the roller doors was hanging crookedly from its mounting location. With his ears ringing from the explosion Drew walked towards the door to see if he could fix it. Not the sanest idea ever but he was pretty rattled from the explosion. They all were.
The door fell completely down off its mounting brackets. Standing in front of it Drew could see clearly into the trashed dining area. Chairs and tables had been tossed everywhere. Dead crawlerz and body parts littered the dining area like the trash after an outdoor rock concert. It was the life size version of dropping three dozen Barbie dolls into a blender with some ketchup then scattering the remains around. Unfortunately not all of those body parts had lost full functionality yet.
A perfectly capable pair of eyes inside the head of a barely alive crawler saw Drew standing there staring out at the carnage. Since the crawler saw it so did all of the other crawlerz surrounding the school. It flashed through all of their minds and was sorted so that it rose to prominence. Almost as one the collective of insane cannibals with super strength set their sights on getting to the cafeteria and ripping into Drew’s fresh flesh. It was pretty much the exact opposite of what LeBron had hoped would happen.
Drew didn’t need Yue to use her magical insightfulness to tell him they were screwed. He felt the sudden attention immediately. As did most of the other people in the room. At least the people who’d accepted it was a real phenomenon. It was time to execute on their piss poor plan and hope it worked out for the best.
Jeff ran to the door leading to the loading dock and waited for the soldier assigned to assist him to jog over. That man made it over with two live grenades squeezed in his fists. Jeff nodded at LeBron who was standing in front of the door with his rifle up to his shoulder. Jeff turned the knob and pushed the door outwards to open it. He immediately ducked back in once the door was open. A crawler who’d been outside on the dock sprinted for the open door. LeBron took it out then shot the one behind it as well .
The soldier waited until LeBron blinked his eyes twice then he spun and tossed the grenades out the door. The door which Jeff was struggling to pull shut. A pair of pale white hands with hideously long fingernails wrapped around the outside of the door pulling it open. They’d thought this might happen. LeBron had actually thought there’d be a lot more of the crawlerz standing around outside when they opened the door. He was kind of wondering now if the grenades were overkill.
Overkill or not if they didn’t get out of the open doorway they were going to get fragged for their efforts. LeBron moved backwards smoothly keeping his focus on the open doorway. Jeff and the soldier lunged out of the open doorway throwing themselves on the ground. LeBron waited with his pistol ready until the infected who’d been trying to get in the door came around the doorway to run in. The tall female crawler stood victoriously silhouetted in the doorway. He drilled her right in the face before he leapt to the side to avoid getting killed by one of their own grenades.
&n
bsp; Flashlights shining ahead of them while two of the soldiers dropped to the rear to provide cover, they rushed out the door into loading dock area. The soldiers behind them opened fire on the crawlerz flooding into the torn up dining area space. Everything was darkness and flashlights and fear. Yue kept fading in and out as her mind felt like it was being turned into a relay station for the infected. When she stumbled Jeff reached down and scooped her up this time.
They were in the open. That meant the crawlerz had a huge advantage. The only thing going for them at this point was there didn’t seem to be many of the infected hanging out on the loading dock. That may be because they’d all run around to join the crowd beating their way in through the windows on the other side of the cafeteria. It showed a more complex ability to communicate than any of them wanted to give the crawlerz credit for, but it looked like it may work out for them this time.
Shooting at any shadow they saw the group quickly split up and ran for their designated vehicles. They’d gone through who was sitting where and everything else while inside the service area of the cafeteria. They’d known that seconds were going to make the difference between living or dying once they opened that door. Jeff had even planned on Yue fainting again just in case.
Crawlerz | Book 4 | From The Ashes Page 9